Reviews Reviews Reviews and guess what...another cliffie!
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Chapter 12: Into the Mist
Ow....Note to self. Moving hurts. Really hurts. Ow....Opening eyes hurts too. Ow....Things I see after I open my eyes really hurts. I can't see anything. Oh great, it's light. A few more hours, go away. I turned over on something soft and then the ache that was once dull was now a full pounding pain. To put it in lamen's terms, I honestly feel like I was just run over -multiple times- by a freaking mack truck. My eyes opened and it was like I was in the movie Reqieum for a Dream. My whole world was like my pupils were massive and I was seeing everything with too much light and too much everything.
"Morning."
"AHHHHHHH!" I screamed and kicked out in the direction of the voice. I think I hit something but drowning and then awakening to a strange voice in a bright world with no idea where the heck you are can do that to you. The thing I hit kind of dodged me. I blinked a couple of times and finally saw him. Okay, blink again. It's Dad.
The anger that I had been feeling was gone. I didn't want to strangle him for some reason. I sat up in bed. Alright, I thought. I'm really freaked out now. I think my facial expression showed that. My father laughed.
"Dad?" I asked. He smiled and nodded. The faded and my hands that had once been so keen on strangling him were now folded on my lap in cruel defience. I didn't want to kill him. I wanted to know. "Why?"
"Why what?" He asked me. I groaned and held my head with one hand. He can't be serious, I thought.
"Why?" I asked again, looking around. "Why'd you leave me?" His smile faded. I looked at him sternly, trying to wipe the tears out of my eyes from the pain that was trying to kill me. The ache in my torso and legs and arms was okay. The emplosion of pain in my head wasn't so cool. Why don't I carry tylenol with me? My father stood up. Wait, hold it for a second. Why's my dad in Elrond-ish robes? Why's he got long hair? WHY IS HE SO FRUITY RIGHT NOW?!
"The night I left I wasn't myself." He began. "Your mother and I had been fighting. She was angry about my secrets and my Library being more of a wife to me then she was." He turned and looked at me, his green eyes piercing through my skin. "So I had to leave."
"Why would you leave us though?" I demanded him. "Why would you leave your children and your wife because of one stupid fight?"
"It doesn't matter now." He said to me.
"It matters to me!" I snapped back, having him run over and say, "SHHHHHH!" very loudly.
"Keep your voice down. You think any of the occupants here were happy to know I was bringing a shouting tourist here? They thought you were a sorceress with the way you were wailing. When you finally came through the portal they were about to kill you."
"Bet you would have enjoyed that." I said, mumbling almost. "What's with your Celeborn imitation clothes?"
"I have a way with elves." He replied. "Took a lot of pleading and bargaining and gaining trust and making deals."
"Deals?"
"Laney do you want to know why I'm here in these clothes with you?" I didn't nod. He knew damn well what I wanted to know. He was probably leaving me without an answer because he wanted to be a bum. "You see Middle Earth is going through a weird time right now. The story keeps repeating in a full circuit. Just when you think the stories over and going to start on something Tolkien never wrote, it starts all over again. The Fellowship has visited here....oh maybe 3 or 4 times. It just keeps happening."
"What do I have to do with this?" I asked. My father sighed.
"Belief." He said to me. "I raised you and your siblings to believe so this place would always stay in existence. But belief isn't enough now. I need people to come to Middle Earth so the story can continue."
"Wait, hold on a second." I said to him, clutching my head softly. "You're talking about bringing people from our Earth to this Earth?" Wow, I confuse myself. My father nodded.
"That was the bargain."
"Bargain with who?" My father sighed again. He looked out the window. The world had a certain mist to it. I felt so empty, like my father had scooped out all my insides with what he had said.
"Tolkien." He said. I looked shocked. My father laughed. "I know it sounds crazy but he's still alive. People tend to stay alive a lot longer here." He laughed again. I gave no reaction. This triggered him to fade out. "I promised him to bring the means of allowing the Fellowship to move on. He promised me safe haven."
"He can do that?"
"It's hard to explain. But now that your here, Delaney we can start bringing people here! We can start making Middle Earth what it never was. We can make it more then what it was." He sat back down on the bed with me, looking right into my eyes. I looked back. Think Laney, think. You're father's asking you to bring people here. Your father's asking you to drop everything and simply come here with him and recruit others to come so some story can stop going in a circuit. He wants you to be like him.
I stood up and looked down at my father. He looked back. We kind of stood there, mesmerized by one another's stares for a moment.
"I..." I began, unsure of how to say what I was about to. My father was hanging on my every word. "I want you to show me where Tobias is, and then I want to go home." My father stood up and opened his mouth to say something. I stopped him. "Look Dad, this whole set up works for you. But I have a life. I have a mother and two sisters and a brother. I have friends and I used to have a father who's family was his whole life." That cut him deep, but it had to be said. "I want to go home."
My father didn't say anything. He walked away from me and opened the door. I moved to it, looking out. Okay, where in the books is there a freaky tower where a waterfall is running right underneath it? I had to ponder this as I looked over. The bottom was hidden under a layer of mist and foam that was so thick I couldn't see anything past 20 or so feet. My father looked at me.
"You can jump, or you can stay, your choice." Damn he wasn't making this easy. I looked down again, just making sure I was seeing what I was seeing.
"So it's jump or forever be here?" My father nodded painfully. I walked around, looking into the room. The door on the opposite wall was so close. Jump and possibly get splattered on the bottom of wherever it ends? Or walk through a door and live elvish for the rest of my life? I looked back at the waterfall.
"I just wanted to tell you." I shouted over the booming of the water. My father looked at me curiously. "I know you don't care but...I missed you. I missed 8 years with you. And now that I know you had a way back, I hate you Dad. You really are dead to me."
Saying that, I did the unthinkable. I ran over to the door my father was opening. I shut my eyes and jumped out, spreading out my arms and diving to the invisible abyss below.
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I swear~ Last cliffie! Well. maybe.